woodwing

The announced support for the ePub format and the ability to download books from the iTunes store will probably give book sales a big boost and must have scared Amazon. The format is great for reading articles that are focussed on plain text, hence the focus on books and possibly newspapers. I doubt the iPad is the best option for reading them though.

It does have a distinct advantage by allowing you to have one device for reading, checking your email and accessing the internet. But just looking at the actual reading experience, devices like the Kindle have better readibility ( using e-Ink instead of lcd screens) and superior battery life (2 weeks for the Kindle http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10404507-1.html). Not even a page flip animation can make up for that (http://i.gizmodo.com/5458329/what-it-looks-like-to-read-a-book-on-the-ap...)..

What about magazines?
For magazines that are looking into providing a compelling experience with animation, more interactivity, integrated video and audio and last but not least a way to build attractive/interactive advertisements ePub is not good enough. If you have not seen it yet, have a look at the Sports Illustrated video on youtube to see what I mean (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntyXvLnxyXk). This is something where the iPad with its fast processor and full color screen could really make a difference.

No Flash
Ironically the only platform that currently does have a toolbox for creating and displaying those magazines is Adobe Flash which is -still not supported-. It gets more and more likely that it will never either. Having the polished up iPhone OS and tying into the App store pretty much shut the door for Adobe AIR as well. If that might ever be deployed on mobile phones and tablets it could be it could mean a build once, deploy to many option. Finally you don't have to rewrite your mobile application for every platform that is out there, be it AIR, Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile etc. The Abobe AIR marketplace would be a direct competitor to the various app stores we have now, including Apple's. Certainly not something Apple will be looking forward to.